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The Toltec culture (/ˈtɒltɛk/) was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. The later Aztec culture saw the Toltecs as their intellectual and cultural predecessors and described Toltec culture emanating from Tōllān[ˈtoːlːãːn̥] as the epitome of civilization; in the Nahuatl language the word Tōltēkatl[toːɬˈteːkat͡ɬ] (singular) or Tōltēkah[toːɬˈteːkaḁ] (plural) came to take on the meaning "artisan". The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of a Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers and their exploits.
Aztec mythology is the body or collection of myths of the Aztec civilization of Central Mexico. The Aztecs were Nahuatl-speaking groups living in central Mexico and much of their mythology is similar to that of other Mesoamerican cultures. According to legend, the various groups who were to become the Aztecs arrived from the north into the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco. The location of this valley and lake of destination is clear – it is the heart of modern Mexico City – but little can be known with certainty about the origin of the Aztec. There are different accounts of their origin. In the myth the ancestors of the Mexica/Aztec came from a place in the north called Aztlan, the last of seven nahuatlacas to make the journey southward, hence their name "Azteca." Other accounts cite their origin in Chicomoztoc, "the place of the seven caves," or at Tamoanchan.
Coatlicue, wife of Mixcōhuātl, also known as Tēteoh īnnān, is the Aztec goddess who gave birth to the moon, stars, and Huītzilōpōchtli, the god of the sun and war. The goddesses Toci “our grandmother” and Cihuacōātl “snake woman”, the patron of women who die in childbirth, were also seen as aspects of Cōātlīcue.
In Aztec religion, Coyolxāuhqui is a daughter of the priestess Cōātlīcue. She was the leader of her brothers, the Centzon Huitznahua. She led her brothers in an attack against their mother, Cōātlīcue, when they learned she was pregnant, convinced she dishonored them all. The attack is thwarted by Coyolxāuhqui's other brother, Huitzilopochtli, the national deity of the Mexicas.
Mixcoatl, or Camaxtle[kaˈmaʃt͡ɬe] or Camaxtli, was the god of the hunt and identified with the Milky Way, the stars, and the heavens in several Mesoamerican cultures. He was the patron deity of the Otomi, the Chichimecs, and several groups that claimed descent from the Chichimecs. Under the name of Camaxtli, Mixcoatl was worshipped as the central deity of Huejotzingo and Tlaxcala.
Tlaltecuhtli is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican deity worshipped primarily by the Mexica (Aztec) people. Sometimes referred to as the "earth monster," Tlaltecuhtli's dismembered body was the basis for the world in the Aztec creation story of the fifth and final cosmos. In carvings, Tlaltecuhtli is often depicted as an anthropomorphic being with splayed arms and legs. Considered the source of all living things, she had to be kept sated by human sacrifices which would ensure the continued order of the world.
In Aztec mythology, Tōnacācihuātl was a creator and goddess of fertility, worshiped for peopling the earth and making it fruitful. Most Colonial-era manuscripts equate her with Ōmecihuātl. Tōnacācihuātl was the consort of Tōnacātēcuhtli. She is also referred to as Ilhuicacihuātl or "Heavenly Lady."
In Aztec mythology and religion, Xipe Totec or Xipetotec was a life-death-rebirth deity, god of agriculture, vegetation, the east, spring, goldsmiths, silversmiths, liberation, and the seasons. Xipe Totec was also known by various other names, including Tlatlauhca, Tlatlauhqui Tezcatlipoca and Yohuallahuan, and Yaotzin. The Tlaxcaltecs and the Huexotzincas worshipped a version of the deity under the name of Camaxtli, and the god has been identified with Yopi, a Zapotec god represented on Classic Period urns. The female equivalent of Xipe Totec was the goddess Xilonen-Chicomecoatl.
Tenoch was a ruler of the Mexicas (Aztecas) during the fourteenth century during the Aztec travels from Aztlán to Tenochtitlan. Tenoch's father was Iztac Mixcoatl, who had a total of seven sons with two wives. The Tenochtitlan people were originally referred to as Tenochca, then the Mexica.
In Aztec mythology, the Centzonmīmixcōah are the gods of the northern stars. They are sons of Camaxtle-Mixcoatl with the Earth Goddess, according to the Codex Ramírez, or Tonatiuh with Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of the seas.
Xelhua is one of the seven giants in Aztec mythology who escaped the flood by ascending the mountain of Tlaloc in the terrestrial paradise and afterwards built the Great Pyramid of Cholula. One of the six giants sons of Mixcoatl, the personification of the Milky Way. A Dominican friar wrote this account:
Before the great inundation which took place 4,800 years after the erection of the world, the country of Anahuac was inhabited by giants, all of whom either perished in the inundation or were transformed into fishes, save seven who fled into caverns. When the waters subsided, one of the giants, called Xelhua, surnamed the 'Architect,' went to Cholula, where, as a memorial of the Tlaloc which had served for an asylum to himself and his six brethren, he built an artificial hill in the form of a pyramid. He ordered bricks to be made in the province of Tlalmanalco, at the foot of the Sierra of Cecotl, and in order to convey them to Cholula he placed a file of men who passed them from hand to hand. The gods beheld, with wrath, an edifice the top of which was to reach the clouds. Irritated at the daring attempt of Xelhua, they hurled fire on the pyramid. Numbers of the workmen perished. The work was discontinued, and the monument was afterwards dedicated to Quetzalcoatl.
Cē Ācatl Topiltzin Quetzalcoatl is a mythologised figure appearing in 16th-century accounts of Nahua historical traditions, where he is identified as a ruler in the 10th century of the Toltecs— by Aztec tradition their predecessors who had political control of the Valley of Mexico and surrounding region several centuries before the Aztecs themselves settled there.
In Aztec mythology, Creator-gods are the only four Tezcatlipocas, the children of the creator couple Ometecuhtli and Omecihuatl "Lord and Lady of Duality", "Lord and Lady of the Near and the Close", "Father and Mother of the Gods", "Father and Mother of us all", who received the gift of the ability to create other living beings without childbearing. They reside atop a mythical thirteenth heaven Ilhuicatl-Omeyocan "the place of duality".
In Aztec mythology the Lords of the Day are a set of thirteen gods that ruled over a particular day corresponding to one of the thirteen heavens. They were cyclical, so that the same god recurred every thirteen days. In the Aztec calendar, the lords of the day are
- Xiuhtecuhtli, god of fire and time.
- Tlaltecuhtli, god of the earth.
- Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water, lakes, rivers, seas, streams, horizontal waters, storms and baptism.
- Tonatiuh, god of the sun.
- Tlazolteotl, goddess of lust, carnality, sexual misdeeds.
- Mictlantecuhtli, god of the underworld.
- Centeotl, goddess of maize. Also recognized as Chicomecoatl, goddess of agriculture.
- Tlaloc, god of the thunder, rain and earthquakes.
- Quetzalcoatl, god of wisdom, life, knowledge, morning star, fertility, patron of the winds and the light, the lord of the West.
- Tezcatlipoca, god of providence, matter and the invisible, ruler of the night, Great Bear, impalpable, ubiquity and the twilight, the lord of the North.
- Mictecacihuatl, goddess of the underworld.
- Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, god of dawn.
- Citlalicue, goddess of the female stars.
In Aztec mythology, the Quinametzin populated the world during the previous era of the Sun of Rain (Nahui-Quiahuitl). They were punished by the gods because they did not venerate them, and their peak-civilization came to an end as a result of great calamities and as a punishment from the heavens for grave sins they had committed. The construction of the pyramid of Cholula and the City of Teotihuacan was attributed to the Quinametzin Giants.
In the Aztec culture, a tecpatl was a flint or obsidian knife with a lanceolate figure and double-edged blade, with elongated ends. Both ends could be rounded or pointed, but other designs were made with a blade attached to a handle. It can be represented with the top half red, reminiscent of the color of blood, in representations of human sacrifice and the rest white, indicating the color of the flint blade.
Xochitlicue is the Aztec goddess of fertility, patroness of life and death, guide of rebirth, younger sister of Coatlicue, Huitzilopochtli's mother according Codex Florentine; and Chimalma, Quetzalcoatl's mother according Codex Chimalpopoca. One of the three daughters of Tlaltecuhtli and Tlalcihuatl, the couple of the earth gods created by the Tezcatlipocas.
Ulmecatl is one of the six giants sons of Mixcoatl and Tlaltecuhtli that populated the Earth after the Great Flood during the Fifth Sun in Aztec Mythology. The third son who founded Cuetlachoapan, the place where Puebla is now, in addition to Tontonihuacan and Huitzilapan.
Surrounded the Earth by the seas and submerged in them for a long time, the old frog, with a thousand jaws and bloody tongues, and the strange name it takes, Tlaltecuhtli; Iztac-Mixcoatl, the fierce white cloud serpent, who lives in Citlalco, joins her in sweet collusion. And six tlacame with love engender; the six brothers on earth dwell and are the trunk of various races: the first-born, the giant Xelhua, of Itzocan and Epatlan, and Cuauquechollan, the cities he founded. Tenoch, the great Aztec claudillo, in Mexico stops the march of his people, and builds the great Tenochtitlan, a lake city. The strong Cuetlachoapan founds Ulmecatl, and gives its indolent people a seat. On the shores of the gulf, Xicalancatl, the brave Mixtecatl takes refuge. Of Mixtecapan in the sour lands; Otomitl, the xocoyotl, always lives in mountains near Mexico, and there it thrives in rich populations such as Tollan, Xilotepec and Otompan
Mixtecatl is one of the six giants sons of Iztac-Mixcoatl and Tlaltecuhtli or Ilancueitl that populated the Earth after the Great Flood during the Fifth Sun in Aztec mythology. The fifth son who founded Mixtlan from where the natives of the region known today as Mixteca come from.
Surrounded the Earth by the seas and submerged in them for a long time, the old frog, with a thousand jaws and bloody tongues, and the strange name it takes, Tlaltecuhtli; Iztac-Mixcoatl, the fierce white cloud serpent, who lives in Citlalco, joins her in sweet collusion. And six tlacame with love engender; the six brothers on earth dwell and are the trunk of various races: the first-born, the giant Xelhua, of Itzocan and Epatlan, and Cuauquechollan, the cities he founded. Tenoch, the great Aztec claudillo, in Mexico stops the march of his people, and builds the great Tenochtitlan, a lake city. The strong Cuetlachoapan founds Ulmecatl, and gives its indolent people a seat. On the shores of the gulf, Xicalancatl, the brave Mixtecatl takes refuge. Of Mixtecapan in the sour lands; Otomitl, the xocoyotl, always lives in mountains near Mexico, and there it thrives in rich populations such as Tollan, Xilotepec and Otompan
Xicalancatl, Xicallancatl or Xicalcoatl is one of the six giants sons of Mixcoatl and Tlaltecuhtli that populated the Earth after the Great Flood during the Fifth Sun in Aztec Mythology. The fourth son who settled on the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico, in the region called Xicallanco, which confirms the abundance that there is in that region of such a vegetable product.
Surrounded the Earth by the seas and submerged in them for a long time, the old frog, with a thousand jaws and bloody tongues, and the strange name it takes, Tlaltecuhtli; Iztac-Mixcoatl, the fierce white cloud serpent, who lives in Citlalco, joins her in sweet collusion. And six tlacame with love engender; the six brothers on earth dwell and are the trunk of various races: the first-born, the giant Xelhua, of Itzocan and Epatlan, and Cuauquechollan, the cities he founded. Tenoch, the great Aztec claudillo, in Mexico stops the march of his people, and builds the great Tenochtitlan, a lake city. The strong Cuetlachoapan founds Ulmecatl, and gives its indolent people a seat. On the shores of the gulf, Xicalancatl, the brave Mixtecatl takes refuge. Of Mixtecapan in the sour lands; Otomitl, the xocoyotl, always lives in mountains near Mexico, and there it thrives in rich populations such as Tollan, Xilotepec and Otompan
References
- ↑ Adela Fernández (1992). Los Dioses Prehispánicos de México (in Spanish). Editorial Panorama. p. 154. ISBN 968-38-0306-7.
- ↑ Cecilio A. Robelo (1905). Diccionario de Mitología Nahoa (in Spanish). Editorial Porrúa. pp. 314 & 121, 122, 123. ISBN 970-07-3149-9.
- ↑ Guilhem Olivier (2015). Cacería, Sacrificio y Poder en Mesoamérica: Tras las Huellas de Mixcóatl (in Spanish). Fondo de Cultura Económica. ISBN 978-607-16-3216-6.
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